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Geotechnical News • June 2012
GEO-INTEREST
On copyright and bureaucratic correctness
Bengt H. Fellenius
When we submit a manuscript to a
journal, we always have to sign over
copyright to all the illustrations, i.e.,
photos, figures, diagrams. We con-
sent to sign lots of little things like
that, whether it is sending a child
to a hockey practice or swim team,
or other extracurricular activity, so
why not also the right to reproduce
the figures of our paper? The form to
sign is long, but that’s only legalese,
right?, so we do not see any problem
in essentially giving the journal the
power to do just about anything they’d
want with the figures, now and “for
perpetuity”. Nobody minds that the
journal publishes and reproduces our
paper. We’d mind if they did not! So,
the more that body, to whom we give
over the right, publishes and exposes
our work, the happier we are. But,
what about our own rights?
Well, the American Society of Civil
Engineers (ASCE) uses a form that
states:
“The undersigned author
retains the right to revise, adapt, pre-
pare derivative works, present orally,
or distribute the work provided that all
such use is for the personal noncom-
mercial benefit of the author”
. Covers
all desired and more, eh?
The Canadian Geotechnical Journal
(CGJ) uses a form stating:
“Owner-
ship of the copyright in the material
contained in the Manuscript remains
with the Author, provided that, when
reproducing the Manuscript or
extracts from it, the Author acknowl-
edges and references publication in
the Journal”
, and a little bit further
along in the legalese the right
“to
reuse all or part of the Manuscript in
other works created for noncommer-
cial purposes, provided the original
publication in an NRC Press journal
is acknowledged through a note or
citation in a format acceptable to NRC
Press”.
In effect pretty well what the
ASCE lets us retain.
So, would anyone have a problem
with this? Perhaps not, but the proof
of the pudding lies in the eating. What
many do not realize is that, by signing
over the copyright, we do not own our
material any longer. Obviously, we are
free to use and re-use it for any non-
commercial purpose. Note the ASCE
words with regard to the rights of the
author:
“to reuse for personal non-
commercial benefit of the author”
and
the NRC Press
“to reuse for noncom-
mercial purposes”
. However, where
they catch us is in the
“noncom-
mercial”
. Most journals are entities
for-profit, i.e., commercial enterprises,
so re-using, say a photo, that was
published in the CGJ in paper submit-
ted to the ASCE Geotechnical Journal,
means that the figure is being re-used
in a commercial context. Therefore,
we are required to obtain proof of per-
mission to re-use from the publisher of
the first paper (CGJ), to be presented
to the second publisher (ASCE), and
the soacquired permission has to
be indicated in the manuscript. The
issue is not our rights, commercial or
otherwise, it is the commercial right
of the legal owner of the property, the
Journal having published the figure the
first time.
It does not matter whether an image to
re-use is from the author’s own previ-
ous paper or from that of some other
person, the figure is owned by the
journal that published the paper, and,
in addition to stating the source of the
image (done by standard publication
reference), permission for reuse has to
be obtained and proof of permission
has to be provided to the for-profit
Journal that is going to publish the
new paper. Note, your paper will not
be accepted with re-used images,
unless you obtain a permission to
reuse and submit this to the publisher.
I have just had the experience of serv-
ing as an assistant editor to a book to
be published by the ASCE, where I
had to convince more than one author
(with senior company position) that
I was serious in my request that he
provide a letter signed by himself
that permits himself to use a diagram
from his company report in the paper
authored by himself. More than a
couple of the authors, when asked to
arrange for the permission for re-
use of a figure from an earlier paper,
replied—generously—that
“I wrote
that paper and I permit the re-use of
the figure”
. They are not lying, they
did write the paper, but they do not
own the rights to re-use the figures.
There’s more to reality than political
correctness. Bureaucratic correctness,
for instance. We have to learn to live
with both.
The rules for reuse apply to all previ-
ously published material, including
photographs. Of course, between the
well-established professional jour-
nals, this is little bother. The CGJ,
for example, has an efficient on-line
procedure. What’s a half-an-hour of
time compared to the 100 hours of
productive work that went into the
writing of the new paper? However,
when the previous publication was in
